• CTO / VP Engineering Services experience
  • Management Board experience
  • Founder of an independent software business since 2000
  • 25+ years building software
  • 15+ years in professional product engineering
  • Business-critical 24/7 production systems (99.98%+ availability)
  • Academic research and scientific publication
Andreas Schwarzkopf

When Companies Call Me

Most conversations start with one of these situations.

  • The company is growing, but the engineering organization is no longer scaling with it.
  • A founder or CEO needs an experienced technical counterpart.
  • The CTO or VP Engineering role is temporarily vacant.
  • Teams are delivering, but priorities, ownership and technical direction are unclear.
  • Software development processes have become slow, political or unreliable.
  • A critical platform has accumulated architectural debt.
  • Product and engineering no longer operate as one system.
  • Leadership needs an independent assessment of the technology, team or roadmap.
  • An investment, acquisition or due-diligence process requires a credible technical perspective.
  • A business-critical Rails platform needs senior technical ownership.
  • Engineering managers or emerging technical leaders need mentoring.

Services

Fractional CTO & Technical Advisory

Technical strategy, build-versus-buy decisions, architecture direction, risk assessment, product feasibility, vendor evaluation, executive sparring.

CTO / VP Engineering Services

Engineering strategy, organizational structure, leadership of managers and teams, delivery accountability, hiring and role design, executive communication, roadmap and resource planning.

Engineering Organization & Culture

Team structures, roles and responsibilities, decision-making processes, ownership models, mentoring managers and technical leaders, sustainable delivery practices.

Software Delivery & Development Processes

Agile delivery systems, planning and refinement, code review practices, quality strategy, release processes, technical debt management, AI-assisted engineering workflows.

Technical Assessment & Due Diligence

Software architecture assessment, codebase review, technical debt and delivery risk analysis — decision support for founders, executives, investors and boards.

Principal Engineering & Hands-on Support

Architecture of complex backend systems, domain and data modelling, business-critical Ruby on Rails systems, versioned APIs, geospatial and algorithmic systems, legacy modernization.

How We Can Work Together

Fractional Leadership

Regular involvement, for example one or two days per week. Suitable for CTO / VP Engineering Services, leadership transitions and ongoing executive support.

Advisory

A smaller recurring commitment. Suitable for founder or CTO sparring, architecture guidance, technical roadmap review and leadership mentoring.

Assessment

Time-boxed engagements. Suitable for technical due diligence, codebase assessments, organizational reviews and delivery risk analysis.

Hands-on Intervention

Focused technical engagement. Suitable for critical architecture work, Rails modernization, difficult migrations and complex backend systems.

Selected Experience

2018 – ongoing · Frankfurt a. M.

ioki / Deutsche Bahn

VP Engineering and advisory Management Board member at ioki, a Deutsche Bahn company. Previously Head of Backend Engineering and System Architect. ioki has grown into one of Europe’s leading demand-responsive transport platforms — a horizontally scalable, business-critical system running 24/7 with more than 99.98% availability, hundreds of thousands of requests per day, and nearly 15 million transported passengers.

2000 – ongoing · Hanau

PCT

Independent software business, self-employed since 2000. Develops and operates ChurchCurator, a cloud-based multi-tenant SaaS platform. Also does Ruby on Rails implementation work — see pct-hanau.de.

2010 – 2017 · Darmstadt

flinc

Built and scaled a mobility product to more than 450,000 users. Ruby on Rails, geospatial algorithms, REST APIs. Supervisory Board member from 2011 to 2015.

2008 – 2009 · Darmstadt

GSI Helmholtzzentrum

Research assistant in the “Radiation Biophysics” working group at GSI Helmholtzzentrum für Schwerionenforschung, a heavy-ion particle accelerator facility. Extended an existing C-based radiation treatment-planning system with 4D structures and non-rigid transformation algorithms to track tumor motion during breathing. Left with an excellent reference.

2003 – 2011 · Darmstadt

Academic Research

Dipl.-Inf., Technische Universität Darmstadt. Diploma thesis on GPU-based nonlinear volumetric anisotropic diffusion filters, rated excellent. Published at the Third International Conference on Scale Space and Variational Methods (SSVM 2011).

See the full CV → for the complete professional timeline, board positions, academic background and publications.

Executive experience did not replace my technical curiosity. It made it more useful.

Technical Depth

Technology choices follow the problem. This is where I still spend real time.

Core Strengths

  • Ruby
  • Ruby on Rails
  • PostgreSQL & PostGIS
  • Redis
  • Sidekiq
  • REST & GraphQL APIs
  • Backend architecture
  • Geospatial systems
  • Production operations & observability

Engineering Environment

  • Docker
  • AWS
  • Heroku
  • GitHub Actions
  • Jenkins
  • Prometheus & Grafana
  • Sentry & AppSignal

Academic & Low-level Background

  • C / C++
  • CUDA
  • OpenGL
  • MIPS / x86 Assembly
  • Scientific computing

Full technical expertise → including the broader language, database and framework history.

Andreas Schwarzkopf

About Andreas

I am an engineering leader, software engineer and computer scientist from the Rhine-Main area. Over more than two decades, I have built software products, designed backend systems, led engineering teams and worked with executive leadership on product and technology decisions.

My professional path ranges from scientific computing and GPU algorithms to Ruby on Rails platforms, mobility systems and engineering organizations. I am most useful where technical depth, organizational leadership and product thinking need to meet.

I remain hands-on by choice. Staying close to software development keeps strategic decisions connected to engineering reality. I also mentor developers and emerging tech leaders — something I have always valued highly.

I still enjoy tracing difficult production behaviour, modelling complex domains and finding the simplest architecture that actually works.

Need Software Built?

For Ruby on Rails development, greenfield products, legacy modernization and long-term implementation support, visit PCT Hanau. When a project needs more than one engineer, PCT also works with the team at bitbirds.berlin.

Let’s Discuss Your Engineering Challenge

Tell me what is changing, where the organization is stuck and what kind of outcome you need. I am most useful when the situation requires both technical depth and leadership experience.

Discuss an Engineering Challenge
Phone: +49 176 – 62 19 50 62
E-Mail: a.schwarzkopf.de@gmail.com
Hanau / Rhine-Main / Remote across Germany and Europe